10 New Reasons I Unsubscribed From Blogs

With a new blog, I like to test-drive it for 6 months before I declare the blog a keeper and add it to my blogroll. Once a month, I go through the process for blogs added to my feed reader 6 months beforehand – I visit each blog individually and revisit the posts over the past 6 months and then I decide – keep reading, or unsubscribe?

Here are some reasons that have helped me make this decision in recent months.

1. Blogs With A Partial Feed

I read a lot of blogs and 85% of them give me a full feed. When a blogger chooses to provide a partial feed, subscribers only see the title and the first 10-50 words of the post. I do not know why anyone would do this – to me it is like cutting off ones blogging nose in order to try and get traffic to their blog.

Bloggers work hard on their content – it is unwise to make their blog readers jump through hoops to read it. SRSLY, think again. Please, provide a full feed.

This is the number one reason I will unsubscribe from a blog. When I subscribe to a new blog and find it is a partial feed, I will still give it the 6 month trial but I already have a feeling what the outcome is most likely going to be. Sometimes people surprise me and end up in my favourites folder instead.

So if you are reading this, bloggers, do you know what kind of blog feed you provide? If not, best you subscribe to your own blog and find out. :)

2. They Never Commented On My Blog

So, I added a blogger to my feed reader, and I really liked their posts, so much so that I became a regular commentator over at their place, leaving a comment on 3-4 posts each week. After a while though, I noticed things were only going one way – theirs. They never once left a comment on my blog.

I don’t know if it was because they couldn’t be bothered clicking through, or whether they did not like my blog – either way, I’m not into one way only relationships. One tiny comment in return for my multitude of comments was all it would have taken to keep me as a reader, and they had a whole six months to do that in!

If I have only left one or two comments in the space of 6 months, then this is not a reason I take into consideration at all. Just in case you were wondering. :)

3. Too Many Photos All The Time

I don’t mind the occasional post with 10 or more images but when every single post is just pictures with a few lines of text, that can be a deal breaker. Especially if the blogger has not re-sized them – large images can take a long time to load, so I’ll get all the text without any images at all and then when I’ve moved on to the next post in that folder, *that* post will keep loading images and bumping what I am trying to read downwards. Annoying!

Please, bloggers, check the size of images before you post them. If you are pulling them right off your camera into your blog then chances are, your readers are getting way too many megapixels as a surprise. Use something like Fast Image Resizer to quickly and easily resize your images.

Not everyone is on a fast internet connection, so it is worth keeping your file size and your readers in mind. :)

4. Too Many GIFS All The Time

Bloggers, if you have more than one GIF in your post, chances are, you are annoying your readers. What is a GIF? It is like an animated image. Here is a GIF.

Gifs are all well and good when used sparingly and occasionally, but use too many and they slow right down and do not work as intended. Your funny GIF is not so funny in extra slow motion. It is also not so funny if it comes from a TV show and I have never seen the show it originated from.

I personally limit GIF images to one per post and very rarely at that. :) Of course, it is their blog and a blogger is welcome to post 20 gifs on one post if they want to – that isn’t something I’ll likely enjoy long term, unless their content is incredible.

5. A Lack Of Good Manners

It is fine to disagree with your blog readers politely. It is another thing to belittle, besmirch, or attack a commentator who disagrees with a post. My preference is to treat people who take the time to comment on your blog decently even when they disagree with you, otherwise you risk losing not just the commentator but readers who see the exchange, as well.

Even worse – on occasion I have seen bloggers totally misinterpret a comment someone left and then attack them for having left it!

One the positive side – I have sometimes found bloggers via their excellent manners and wonderful, thoughtful comments in the comments sections of other blogs.

6. Deleted!

A blogger wrote a post people strongly disagreed with – when people disagreed – politely, mind you – with that blogger in the comments, they DELETED the whole post. Whoa! That is so not cool with me. If you write something, stand by it, even if the comments you receive oppose what you wrote.

Be open to the fact that maybe not everyone agrees. Be open minded enough to allow blog commentators to express their opinions. If people have taken the time to thoughtfully disagree with a blogger via a comment, it is NEVER COOL to delete the post in my opinion, and it will make me hit unsubscribe.

7. Deleting Recent Posts –

I had bookmarked several recent posts intending to link to them on my blog at a future time and when I went back to grab the title and link the post, those posts were gone. And these were not deeply personal subjects – these were recipes that the blogger had cooked and provided excellent photos for, or posts where they had travelled and done a lot of interesting commentary and photos. I’m not sure why these bloggers felt these posts had to be deleted but I was disappointed enough to hit unsubscribe.

It is totally normal for a blogger to go back in time and check to see that their blog content from years ago is still relevant and the links and videos still work, and if not and they can’t find new links or videos, it is normal – and good for your blog – to delete those old posts. But to me deleting recent posts feels slightly unusual and somewhat odd to delete stuff they recently wrote.

Maybe this happens all the time and I just don’t notice it, because I’m not trying to link to the deleted post months later. :)

8. I Left A Comment –

Which the blogger did not choose to publish, but they then used my comment to create their next blog post. There is absolutely nothing wrong with spring-boarding a post out of a comment someone left on your blog. If a blogger is going to do that, they could at least have the decency and good manners to publish the comment, reply to it and say something like “I have been thinking about writing a post on that subject for a while, and your comment has inspired me to write it. Look out for my upcoming post on this topic!”

Whenever I write a post here which was inspired by something I saw elsewhere or a comment someone left, I make sure to mention that and if that person has a blog or a specific blog post of theirs inspired me, I link to that in the post. That is just good manners, in my opinion.

9. They Spelled My Name Incorrectly!!

This one is a very specific example. I emailed a blogger once, they replied and spelled my name Snoksred. Oops, I thought! I am super careful not to accidentally spell peoples names wrong – I will copy and paste if there is any doubt at all. But I forgave it, because perhaps it was a mistake..

But I emailed that same blogger a second time, they replied, and spelled my name Snoksred *again* – and that was the moment I looked for that blog in my feedreader, and hit unsubscribe. Once is a mistake, twice is carelessness and to be honest, a little bit offensive. Especially when my sender name is Snoskred, so when they hit reply my name is right there in the body of the email.

10. They Became Brainwashed

They had a wonderful and very interesting blog. But then they got involved with some kind of multi-level marketing company, or perhaps a brand of skincare, or cleaning products, or something they wanted to sell to the world. And now every post they write is All About That Fascinating To Them But Very Boring To Me obsession. I wouldn’t have minded if they had posted about it once a week and still kept the regular amazing content. However that content went AWOL, and now I’ve gone AWOL too.

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27 thoughts on “10 New Reasons I Unsubscribed From Blogs”

I agree with several of your reasons, some don’t bother me that much. I do expect someone to acknowledge that I’ve commented, if they are the type that respond to comments. And I really do prefer comments to be a conversation, not just an ego-stroke for the blogger. Some I might continue to read if they interest me, but I won’t comment. And, like you, I walk away from those who don’t approve my friendly comments.

Sometimes I have not been excellent at replying at comments myself, so I usually give bloggers a pass on that one. :) Even more so with the more heartfelt comments I leave because sometimes those comments are sometimes quite hard to write, I can’t imagine how it is to receive them, and all I wanted when I left the comment was to let that person know they are not alone and I’ve felt the same way. :)

The time my comment did not get approved, I’d written that we were talking about buying meat in bulk but I’d never done it and I wasn’t sure how it worked, lo and behold, her very next post was all about buying meat in bulk. And I went back and double checked once, didn’t see my comment, and decided to unsubscribe.

Then someone else mentioned that blog and I checked a second time, it was a good couple of months later. No comment from me. Plenty of comments from people who were not me, though.. that kinda makes it even worse. :(

Good to see you out and about and commenting, I have been thinking of you. Please to recover soonest! :)

My number 1 pet peeve is when people stop creating their own content and turn into one big advertisement board. I take on things to review, and the most I’ve ever done in one week was 3, and I felt awful! I like most of my content to be created by me, on my schedule. When a blogger I love starts churning out sponsored posts about the joys of double glazing and every single outfit has a c/o product (or more than one!) it turns me right off.

Another reason I might unsub is if they use too many ‘fun’ fonts, a tiny font, or use white text on black in tiny letters. If I’m having to hit CTRL+ on their posts to be able to see them, they’re gone.

Sometimes if a blogger totally turns tail on their original subject matter I might unsub, it depends how interesting their new subject matter is.

Another one which really pees me off is when someone doesn’t publish my comments, or someone who has never once replied to me or bothered to comment on my blog. Life’s too short!

I totally agree about the sponsored posts. I don’t mind them for the most part, especially when I can tell the blogger really truly loves the product/book/movie/thing, and I deeply love it when they did *not* love it and they clearly speak their mind on that.

One thing I always appreciate – and always try to do in my own posts whether someone gave me a free book or product – I always like it when they include at least one negative. Some people do it as Pros and Cons which is always a great post for me to read.

My feed reader gives me the posts how I choose to see them, which means I always get the same size font. I like a dark background for reading, so I picked a dark theme, unlike my blog where I chose a light background as it is what people are used to. :)

One thing that bugs me is when you have to jump through hoops just to comment on someone’s blog. When you have to fill out an email, name, website etc. Or I have had where you have to choose a specific account (google+ or something) to be able to comment. I just want to leave my comment without having to fill out a questionnaire.

For those of us who use wordpress, this can be a thing when you try to comment on blogger/blogspot blogs. And vice versa.

I always encourage people to be logged into a gmail account which they use specifically for commenting as blogger/blogspot will pick that up when you are loading the blog and your name will be there in the dropdown box to select. But you do also need to fix your profile and add your blog address so that people can click on your name and find you. :)

If you are on blogger, then having a wordpress.com account which only takes a few moments to set up means while you are logged into it, anytime you go to a blog your details self populate. :)

I should do a post on this, and I will! ;) See how easy was that!

Thanks Autumnhm – and I am loving your blog btw. I intend to go back to the post where I found you and dig up a bunch of new blogs to read for May. :) I already had 30 for this month. On Thursday I publish my new feeds April post and I put in your new URL.. :)

I pretty well agree with every point. I do things slightly differently in that I am very slow to add people to my blogroll. Once there, I have already decided they are worth being there, if you get what I mean. If they stop blogging, they are moved to resting, dead and infrequently updated.

I don’t have anything to with people promoting commercial products on their blog, although I don’t mind if someone has non-intrusive advertising on their site. Of course talking positively about a commercial product is fine, as long as you aren’t being paid to do so.

Point 7, I know there are some broken links and removed You Tube vids on my older posts, but I don’t delete the post. There is often enough information in the post about what is removed to find the same thing again. With over 6,000 posts, I am not going back to fix them all though.

I don’t expect people to comment too often, just an occasional comment to keep the wheels of blog friendship turning. Some who used to comment but rarely do now are exempt from this as the ones I am thinking of, I have already established a relationship with them and I can email them or whatever.

A final observation, you tend to gather blog people around you who have similar politics to your own, similar environmental concerns, similar animal rights concerns, similar human rights concerns. With some pride I say most who comment on my blog are very very intelligent and well read people, not that it is a requirement for me. Oddly, many of my commenters are either school teachers or retired teachers. (Blog tip #101, when you write an excessively long comment like this, copy it before clicking the post button so you can repost it if it flies off into outer space)

I’ve been going back through my old blog posts – slowly, it is quite the process – and unfortunately when I began blogging I was not as smart as I am now. I posted things with just a title and a video link, and when I went back to them, I had zero idea what video I might have posted. :) Lesson learned for the future, but posts like that went into the bin.

Broken links are something I always want to fix. I think there is nothing worse as a blog reader than doing a search for something, ending up on an old post, and there is just one link in it but it is a link I really want to read! – when I click, the link is dead.

I did a lot of linking to other blogs back in the day and it is somewhat sad to go back and find those blogs no longer exist. Where did those people go?

I have some articles here on my blog which are linked to from all over the web, plus they are articles that get referred to again and again by people eg my 5 million dollars online post. I went back and re-clicked on all the links and too many of them were dead, so I had to do some work to find newer ones. :)

There is something that is worse than publishing a partial feed…publishing a feed that is solely the title of the post and nothing else, not a picture, nor any idea of what the post is about.

One of the blogs that I read has gone to that for a while, but now I see that their feed is turned something that you may find in a Facebook feed – a title followed by a click-baity tease

That said, there are certain blogs where the partial feed works out really well. Longreads is one of those; since these are (as the name implies) longer articles, the partial feed is ideal with a clip so you can decide whether or not you wish to read the whole article.

#6 and #8; I haven’t noticed many disappearing posts, but I have noticed disappearing comments, in particular, those where I have disagreed with something the blogger has said. Do they only want a legion of “yes men” as followers? I don’t mind at all if people disagree with anything I write. Other opinions are welcome and maybe I’ll learn something new. I will remind people to ‘play nice’ if they get rude or abusive though.

I think there *are* some bloggers out there who only want positive yes style comments. I feel like this positive only stuff is a problem with a lot of the world today. That is one reason why I make it a point to look for – and include and talk about – negatives here on my blog. :)

I have posts with no photos and others with lots; it just depends on the situation. Sometimes(like after a trip) the pictures drive the post because I’m so overwhelmed with the stories I could tell that I would never blog about it otherwise, yet I love to have a record of my impressions and feelings. I don’t keep an active blogroll these days, just a feed on Bloglovin'(hate the name but it’s user friendly) I think everyone’s posts are just a snippet until I click on the name of the blog or the post. No idea how mine shows up anywhere. I’m appalled that people wouldn’t publish comments(all of mine get published) or respond to the efforts of others to leave a comment because it’s hard on some blogs! The latest thing is a captcha(sp?) where I have to identify the like photos and sometimes they are very difficult to see. :)

Margaret – yours comes through as a partial feed. In fact, let me give you the snippet for your most recent post here –
—-
The best solution for me when I’m fired up and ranting is to write it all down on this blog, even though I realize that it makes me sound like a WAY angrier and more negative person than I am….
—-
If you want to change it, this is an older set of instructions for typepad but you could give this a try –

Login to your TypePad account
Choose the blog of your choice via the “Blogs” pulldown in the top green navigation.
Click on the “Settings” Tab in the top blue navigation
Click on the “Feeds” button in the left hand navigation
Go to the “Feed Content” section and select the option of your choice.

Margaret – Your photos always are tiny kilobyte wise, so they do not take very long to load. I’d love to know what you are using to resize them! :)

Bloglovin does seem to make everything a snippet from what I have seen. I’d say switch over to something like Inoreader which shows the feeds the way the bloggers want you to see them. :)

We all hate captchas – this is why I tend to make accounts for every different kind of blog so that I can avoid the captchas you get when you try to comment not logged into google or wordpress or disqus or whatever. :)

I think I fixed the partial feed problem. :) I didn’t even realize there was such a thing, but I must have clicked it a long time ago in settings. I am pleasantly surprised about the size of my photos since I do nothing to them except bring them in through typepad then ask for them to be large. Most of them are digital photos, so kudos to typepad, not to me. (I don’t know what I’m doing!)

First of all, thanks for testing me out on your blogroll. Secondly, I am just loving all the unabashed honesty in your posts (in general) and about why you unsubscribe. It’s not like the A list blogger generic list that goes around and then everyone else copies. One thing that struck me from your 14 reasons post is the one about bloggers who go ghost and post once a month or every two months and what that says to their readers. It’s interesting to me, because I have never considered that anyone might remotely care about whether I posted or not. I am one in a billion blogs and not one of the popular ones at that. Sometimes I am not even certain that anyone is reading! Anyway, it would serve me well to believe that my blog matters.

Cece, yours was one of the blogs on Bloglovin’ where the content made me click through to read more. I loved your Sedona posts and the post about the wedding. Sometimes when I visit a blog I know right away it is going to be a long term keeper for me. :)

I think as a blogger it is important to have a posting schedule, even if it is only once a week or once a month. I also feel like the schedule should be known to the readers so they know when to expect the next post. :)

There are a lot of blogs out there in the world. Every single blog I read is unique in its own way and I love that I can travel to places I never thought of, go to events I never knew existed, go to restaurants on the other side of the world, learn about things I had no idea about..

Ugh – I can’t stand legions of GIFs! I agree that too many GIFs is a really fast way to loose my attention. I also really can’t stand when someone is rude in their own comments. I place a great deal of value on civility and someone will loose me immediately if I see they’re being rude in their comments.